Did you know that the USA had a fast bowler who averaged 15.66 in 65 First-Class matches? well they did, his name was Bart King. the name king is a suitable one when you realise he got 38 5 wicket hauls in 65 FC matches at an average of 15.66 and a total of 415 wickets. wasn't too shabby with the bat either with an average of 20.51 with 1 century and 8 half centuries.

Bart King was by a wide margin the greatest cricketer that the US has ever produced, as well as being a great character. His reputation outside America was largely made by his three tours of England with The Philadelphians (who before World War 1 played cricket to a high standard) in 1897, 1903 and 1908. His figures in first-class matches on those tours were:

Though by 1908 he was 35 years old, his bowling average was the lowest of the English season. His 87 wickets were taken in just 10 matches. He bowled very fast in his early days, and developed the ability to swing the ball late from leg. Judges such as Pelham Warner, C.B.Fry and H.V.Horden ranked him amongst the great bowlers.

In all first-class matches he scored 2134 runs at 20.52, with 1 century, and took 415 wickets at 15.67.

There is a difference between scoring a century against the likes of abuls and rajibs, and the steyns and morkels

Why are you picking on his batting when bowling was clearly his main role?

The quality of opposition couldn't have been as bad as the Abuls and Rajibs - FC cricket in England back in those days would have had some of the best players in the world at the time. If you had gone to his Cricinfo profile and clicked on the only article that the site has on him, you'd know how good he was:

Quote:

Bart King 10 for 53, Philadelphia v Ireland, 1909
The only American among the 79. King is generally regarded as the greatest of the pre-war cricketers in the USA and he undertook three successful tours of England. With cricket in Philadelphia before the Great War accorded first-class status, a number of overseas sides toured there and in 1909 he opened a two-match series against Ireland with a ten-for. In Ireland's four innings he took 25 for 151. In 1912 he was still good enough to take 12 wickets in a drawn two-match series against the full Australian side.

To be honest live coverage of T20 WC was a masterclass decision. I know 90% of the people are SC people but the remaining 10% are from the US.This way we can get USA to take even the slightest of interest in this sport. Imagine cricket being among the top 15 sports over there, that will still be good.

To make a sport popular its got to be on tv. Thats they first and last way you can spread the game around the world. Why did people in BD start to watch cricket? because cricket matches were shown on tv or aired by the radio, why is tennis popular around the world? because the sport is broadcasted by many channels. Why youths around us follow EPL so closely? they can easily watch it from their TV for low cost.

I'm sure most of you know this already. But I know many who don't. Just so everyone is aware of it, they aren't just broadcasting this tourney. ESPN is in a deal with ICC through WC15. So they'll broadcast every ICC events till then (if nothing goes wrong). So the best thing for us would be to watch, re-watch, comment, like, share, tweet, w/e the **** else we can do to let them know that they've got enough views. So they extend their deal. Cricket scores has been on the ESPN scroller and on the main page, it made it through to top 10 plays 4-5 times last week. That's little but BIG. And I read they will show the final on ESPN2!

Now it's up to us, the cricket fans to use this chance and push forward from here on. It does sound a bit lame, and why should we have to do all that just because ESPN finally realized about cricket and it's popularity, but we should for our own good...

I just checked ESPN3 schedule for the 2nd week of October. ESPN3 will also cover the Champions League. We can watch Shakib play and not have to worry about Chorai link. ESPN3 is def interested in going after more cricket tournaments. I think next they will probably aim for IPL, but that might be hard to get since youtube already has some kind of deal going on with BCCI. I really hope the winner of next season of BPL will participate in next year's champions league, that way we'll have an entire team to follow and not just 1 player.

I wonder if Youtube's interest in broadcasting IPL and SLPL live had anything to do with ESPN showing so much interest in broadcasting cricket.

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